


Locker 15

by engagemythrusters



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Naked Hide and Seek
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-09
Updated: 2020-04-09
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:48:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23547922
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/engagemythrusters/pseuds/engagemythrusters
Summary: "Just climb in. The door will lock behind you. Terrible for hide and seek—just ask Ianto!"—Jack
Relationships: Jack Harkness/Ianto Jones
Comments: 5
Kudos: 97





	Locker 15

**Author's Note:**

> References to minor, off-hand quotes from Big Finish Audios. No need to listen to any of them to understand this fic (but they're good, and I'd recommend pretty much any and all of them).  
> No explicit sex, but allusions obviously made to it.

Jack has no true regrets about this game, though he does wish he could keep his socks on. Sure, it would look weird as all hell, walking around bare naked with naught but socks on his person, but at least it would lessen the bite of the Hub's floor. Jack comes from a world of hot sand. The cold concrete and metal flooring isn't what he's used to, even after over a century of living here. Owen likes to tease him about dragging his greatcoat everywhere, especially during the summer, but there's a _reason_. He'll never get used to this climate. It's not made for him. 

He stops musing on genetics and climate differences for a moment, peering around the Rift Manipulator.

"Iantooo," he calls. 

He doesn't really expect Ianto to be hidden there, but one never knew. Ianto was _bendy_. By his own admission. And proven by Jack's observances. 

Ianto definitely isn't anywhere near the water tower, Jack decides after he's swept a keen eye up and down and all around. 

"Alright," he says to Ianto (though Ianto isn't there, so Jack has no idea why he's speaking to him), "you're not in the main part of the Hub... If you're in the Archives, I'm going to leave you down there, I swear."

Then he takes off in the direction of the Archives.

He first stops to take a peek down in the direction of the cells, though. Jack hid in the cell once, and Ianto never bothered to look for him because _nobody_ would hide in somewhere so obvious. Or somewhere that disgusting. Not when they're _naked_. But Jack had done it, and now he has to make sure every time, just in case Ianto thinks Jack won't check there and hides there himself.

Nobody in the cells but Janet. Though she's not naked, thank god. Still wearing her navy workman's coveralls, and not at all pleased that she's been disturbed from her nap.

"Sorry, Janet," Jack says, then returns to his search.

This is the part where the Hub starts to get maze-like. Just past the cells, beyond the storage rooms, and right before the Archives. Corridors lead off every which way, leading to smaller storage areas, more less-used cells, and a few sections of the upper-level archives. 

Jack glances down a few of the hallways, deliberating which is the most likely direction Ianto would travel down. On one hand, he likes the Archives. On the other hand, there are lots of spaces to hide in the storage rooms. Jack doubted Ianto was down in those other cells. If the normal ones aren't a wise place to stand in naked, then those cells... Ianto is smarter than that. 

If he had a coin, he'd flip it and decide from there, but as he's naked and the only place to hide a coin is... not where coins should go, he shrugs and turns left, toward the storage rooms. Gut feeling. Always trust gut feeling. 

Now, down the corridor to the extra storage areas are a row of lockers, lined up right against the walls. They aren't used for very much, though back in the day—meaning well over a century ago and when Torchwood hadn't an armoury—they had been filled with weapons. Guns (tiny dart guns and large rifles and everything in between), blades (spanning from needle-like knives to greatswords), explosives (the range of which, Jack can never fully recall), and much, much more. They're empty now, because fifty years ago, everyone grew very tired of dashing all the way through the maze-like webs of the Hub just to grab a pistol. 

Well. They _should_ be empty, anyway.

"Jack? Is that you?"

Jack pauses beside one of the lockers.

"Ianto," he laughs. "You do realise you're _not_ supposed to let me know where you are, right?"

"I'm stuck."

Jack frowns. "What?"

"I'm stuck," Ianto repeats. 

"Stuck how?" Jack asks, trying to pinpoint which locker Ianto is in.

"I can't get out," Ianto says. "I'm... I think I'm trapped."

Jack drops any and all thoughts of Naked Hide-and-Seek (or what should come after, when he would have won). 

"Which locker?" Jack asks.

"I don't... I don't remember which one," Ianto admits. "The door was propped open and I just kind of... slid in. Then it closed on me."

Jack follows the sound of his voice and stops in front of the middlemost locker. 

"Are you in this one?" Jack asks, then pounds on the door.

 _"Jesus_ , Jack!" Ianto snaps from inside. "Don't do that!"

"Sorry."

"Never mind it. Can you get me out of here?"

Jack takes a moment to marvel at the way Ianto's vowels flow, at the way he rounds his words, then snaps out of it. 

These lockers (much like any locker, really) lock themselves automatically when shut. Ianto is stuck in there, unless Jack can get him out. Which he can. Well, he could. The problem is—

"I don't know the pin," Jack says. 

"I might."

Jack stares at the locker. "You might?" 

"I know everything."

Jack rolls his eyes. "Okay, then, what's the pin?"

A pause blankets the corridor. Jack folds his arms and waits expectantly. 

"I'm not sure," Ianto says after a moment.

"I thought you said—"

"I do," Ianto cuts over him. "I just don't know which pin goes with which locker. I don't even know which _locker_ I'm in."

"Locker fifteen," Jack tells him.

"Okay. Right. Um. Try... seventeen fourteen."

"One... seven...." Jack mutters as he tries the code. "One... four."

He jiggles the door. It doesn't budge.

"It's not working," he says, rather pointlessly.

Jack hears Ianto cuss faintly under his breath. 

"Alright, try sixty-six twenty-nine," Ianto says.

"Six... six... two nine..." Jack tries to open the door again. "Nope."

"Fine. Okay. Eleven oh eight."

Jack tries the new number. The door still won't budge. 

"Fifty-one fifty-one?"

The door stays locked.

"Seven thousand two?"

"Ianto..." Jack says when he still can't open the door. 

Ianto lets out a groan, long, low, and desperate. Jack, filled with sympathy, puts his hand on the door, right where he thinks Ianto's head is. 

"I can call Toshiko," Jack says. "She can probably search through the records to find all the old codes."

_"No."_

Jack sighs. "Ianto, she can help."

"I'm naked!" Ianto hisses. "She'll tell Gwen. And Gwen will tell Owen. Besides, I can remember! We'll just have to try some more."

"Alright," Jack says, though he isn't so sure.

Three more codes go by. Thirteen hundred two. Fifty-seven twenty-one. Thirty-three twenty-two. None of them work.

Metal pounds on the inside of the locker. 

"Calm down," Jack tells Ianto, as gently as possible.

"This is enough to turn me claustrophobic," Ianto grumbles. 

Jack recalls Ianto's fears. "You're lucky it's not filling with water, or anything."

"... _why_ did you have to mention that?"

"Sorry," Jack says, rather earnestly. 

Ianto doesn't reply.

"You okay?" Jack asks after the pause stretches on for long enough.

"Try eighteen seventy-nine," Ianto says tautly. 

Jack holds back another sigh and tries the newest combination. To his surprise, the lock clicks and opens. Jack stares at it momentarily, surprised that it actually worked (though he's not sure why—one of them had to work eventually), then hastens to open the door. Ianto stares up at him, open-mouthed pout of shock painting his face. Jack takes one look at it and laughs.

"It's not funny," Ianto grouses, crawling out of the locker.

"I'm sorry," Jack laughs, "but your _face!"_

Ianto gets to his feet and glowers at Jack, but Jack can see the corners of his lips tug upwards as Jack keeps on laughing. 

"You were stuck in the locker!" 

"Shut up," Ianto says, albeit good-naturedly. 

Then he waits patiently, arms crossed and hands stuffed under his armpits, face placid but for the slightest upward tilt of his mouth, as Jack continues to laugh at the hilarity of it all. When Jack's laughter winds down, one of his eyebrows twitch up, a tacit "are you finished?"

"Do I win?" Jack asks.

Ianto rolls his eyes. 

"I did break you out of..." Jack bites down the returning laughter. "Out of a _locker_."

"Fine, you win," Ianto concedes. When Jack lets out a noise of triumph, his eyes narrow and he adds, "But only because I let you. If I didn't tell you, you would never have known."

"And what do I win?" Jack asks, moving closer to Ianto. His hands travel up Ianto's torso, settling on his neck to cup Ianto's face. "What's my prize?"

"Massaging my cold arse," Ianto says dryly, without hesitation. 

"Sounds good to me," Jack says.

He leans in and kisses Ianto, first gently, as an I'm-glad-you're-out-of-the-locker-and-safe kiss, then rougher, as an I'm-horny-and-you're-naked kiss. Ianto responds in willingly, his hands slowly roaming downward on Jack's body.

"Next time," Jack murmurs between kisses, "remember which codes go to what."

"You didn't know them either," Ianto protests. "So if you want to— _mmph_. _"_

Jack smiles into the kiss, but only briefly, as it isn’t long before Ianto’s tongue is in the way.

**Author's Note:**

> I sort of played with the Hub layout. I'm not sure there's proof that I'm wrong, anyway... so anything outside the main sector of the Hub is fair game, really.  
> Thanks for reading! Have a nice day!


End file.
